Carlyle's SE Asia head leaves firm after dealmaking drought

Reuters Staff

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JAKARTA/SINGAPORE, March 1 (Reuters) - Carlyle Group’s Southeast Asia head, Anand Balasubrahmanyan, has left the group, the company said on Thursday, after four-and-a-half years with the U.S. buyout firm during which sources said his team struggled to do deals in the region.

A company spokesman confirmed his departure, but would not elaborate on why he left. Balasubrahmanyan declined to comment.

Sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Balasubrahmanyan’s team hadn’t been able to clinch deals in Southeast Asia, which was one of the reasons for his departure.

The split was amicable, said one of the sources.

Carlyle has so far managed to complete only one deal in Southeast Asia, a $190 million investment in China Fishery , a Singapore-listed seafood company.

A former Morgan Stanley investment banker, Balasubrahmanyan joined Carlyle as a director in late 2007 when the buyout boom period was coming to an end.

He was listed as Carlyle’s managing director based in Singapore focused on buyout opportunities in Southeast Asia on the firm’s website.

The buyout firm last year came close to buying a stake in Indonesia’s consumer firm GarudaFood, which would have been its first acquisition in Indonesia, but Japanese beverage firm Suntory snatched the deal in the end. (Reporting by Janeman Latul in Jakarta, Saeed Azhar in Singapore and Stephen Aldred in Hong Kong; Editing by Richard Pullin)